The visit to Fili's friends had been educational. She learned that Fili's friends were not easy prey. She also learned that bloodrose sap was a great bloodstain remover, especially for wood. They'd spent a couple of days being paranoid but nothing had happened. She still had no idea who had hired the thugs, but there was no reason to sit around at home all the time. The number of suspects was starting to get very thin due to the ongoing changes in guild leadership.

Right now Alissa was getting a grim reminder of those changes as she sat at one of the cafes that had opened up. It wasn't raining right now, which meant an enterprising group of citizens were at the lampposts stringing up the members of a company that had been smuggling out cash to some of the sanctioned guilds.

"You wanna find a different place?" she asked Sera. The elf was giving the redecorating a side eye. And honestly Alissa couldn't fault her. If this had been an execution instead of just a display Alissa would be leaving already.

"Nah," Sera shifted her seat to face away from the street. "I've waited two weeks to get this damn coffee. I'm not skipping out now."

Juli nodded. "Especially since the Mermaid Trading Company is toast. The city's going to be short on high end coffees for a bit."

"That bad huh?" Alissa couldn't really tell the difference between good and high end coffee, but a shortage of the costly stuff meant prices would rise for everyone. Maybe she should stock up. Either that or figure out where Akari was getting her tea from. "I'll have to sit down with Clara to see what labyrinth materials are going up in price."

"Don't suppose you can get coffee down there? It'd be sooo nice if you could help a girl out." Juli asked in her flirty voice.

Alissa snorted. "It's not something that grows often in the forest labyrinths. Sorry. And I take it you're still out of work if you need to practice on me."

"Well I've signed onto a new club, but there's no clients," Juli replied. "Rich people aren't exactly running out to party these days."

"You good on money?" Alissa asked. She was pretty sure her friends got decent pay from their job, but being out of work for over a week wasn't good for anyone's finances.

Juli's ears perked up and she leaned forwards to show off her cleavage, but Sera lightly whacked the bunny girl on the back of the head. "She's fine. We've been looting the old club for food and cash. And I've already grabbed a new paying job and apartment so she's been crashing at my place."

"Oh? Where'd you get a job?" Alissa asked. "I wouldn't think people would be hiring right now."

"That woman you rescued, Ethel. She needed some help with her floral shop." Sera tapped her pointed ears. "I might not have a green thumb or anything, but I'm still good with plants. Just need to study up on how to take care of them all."

"Congratulations!" Alissa hadn't spent a lot of time with the woman, but she'd seemed nice from their chat. "Guessing she's letting you room in the upper level of the store?"

Sera nodded. "Yep. It's an okay space. And way less stairs than my old apartment."

Juli threw an arm around Sera's shoulders. "Don't worry though. I'll make sure her thighs stay well toned for when she decides to start reeling in a good catch."

The elf's blush suggested there was more to that statement than Juli's usual flirting. Alissa hid her grin behind her coffee. "Congrats on that too then. Should I not introduce Rosalina, or are you fine with competition?"

Sera elbowed Juli in the ribs lightly before gathering her own coffee. "If I cared about monogamy I wouldn't have hooked up with this lecher. Anyway, how are you doing? Last we saw you'd been put through the wringer. I hope you got help with that."

Alissa looked into the steaming black liquid in front of her. "How am I doing, huh? I guess I'm doing good?"

"Normally people feeling good are sure about it," Juli said, leaning back in her chair. "Wanna chat about it?"

"No, I think I am doing good. It's just..." Alissa waved her hand in a circle. "It's just confusing. I'm fine on money, I've got more friends now then I've had in total since I got this merge, and I got to help get rid of a whole lot of assholes. On the other hand I had a soul injury, which is as miserable as it sounds. And there's two monsters living next door which is fucking weird."

Juli's ears twitched. "Don't you live on the river floodplain? In an only barely legally built shack?"

"Yeah. Had a houseboat ground itself nearby," Alissa sighed. "Along with an angel and a harpy. Which Fili and Akari adopted."

Sera gave her a questioning look. "Not a fan of tamers?" Alissa got the feeling Sera was worried she'd pull out some weird cult nonsense or bigotry. Which was sorta fair. Most people who were anti tamer were weirdos.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Alissa waved off the woman's concern. "Not a fan of playing with people's souls. Figure when you kill someone they should be dead." She sighed. "But to be honest the real annoying thing is the stupid bird is nice. Well, okay no, she's a snarky little shit. But she otherwise seems like a good person. Or whatever she is."

"So you feel bad for being uncomfortable around them," Juli said. "Which makes you more uncomfortable."

"Sounds right," Alissa sighed. "Too much bullshit."

Sera patted her arm. "Probably shouldn't overthink it. It sounds like your friends are following all the safety rules instead of just letting them run around because 'they seem like good people.' Might as well trust in the magical nonsense and just act normal."

Alissa sighed again and nodded. "Not sure what normal is, but yeah. Might as well try." She took another sip of coffee. "Also going to need to do some reading. Because if I don't catch up on monster lore Fili's gonna finally break out of her introversion and start reading me her monsterpedia as a bedtime story."

The two other girls giggled at that thought. "I'd have thought learning that was part of delver training," Sera said. "Not that there's anything official, but I remember you said you spent a lot of time at your aunt's place prepping to be a delver."

"Knowing how to kill something is easy," Alissa replied. "It's all the little magical rules and soul bits and whatnot that I don't get. Doesn't help that no one really knows what all composes a soul or magic anyway. Physical objects are much easier to handle."

"Well if she gives you the books for free..." Juli said with a shrug. "Bet she'd be super happy if you did read them on your own too. Nerds and writers love when you're interested in the same stuff they are, and she's both!"

Alissa leaned back and rolled her eyes. "I'm not trying to seduce her or get her to buy me things."

Juli leaned forwards with a conspiratorial grin. "But do you want to seduce her? Come on Alissa, I know you've got a heart beating in that huge chest. When are you gonna live a little?"

"Some time in the future," Alissa stated with finality. "Right now I need to get back my delving skills. Probably need to run a few easy missions to get used to my techniques again. Can't trust my merge's instincts."

"Be careful," Sera said. "Don't rush off into something dangerous just to get your edge back or some nonsense."

Alissa gave the elf a smile which seemed to answer the woman's worries. "I've read enough stories to know that's a dumb idea. I'm good for cash, so I want something easy."

Juli gave a dramatic sigh. "To have such problems. Too much money, too sexy, surrounded by geniuses. A tragic life. We should swap places!"

"I think someone would notice," Alissa said with a grin.

"Yeah even your breasts aren't that big," Sera said under her breath. The elf blushed as Alissa and Juli both turned to look at her. "What! I can make a joke now and then!"

Alissa laughed. "I suppose that's only fair." She finished off the coffee and set her mug down. "Sadly we should probably go. The coffee's getting cold and there's an argument about the corpses breaking out."

"Ugh, yeah." Sera finished her own brew while Juli joined Alissa in giving the crowd a side eye. Apparently someone, perhaps a local business owner, had decided to protest using corpses as streamers. Unfortunately the mob wasn't in a polite mood, and people were starting to shout. "Have to walk past that to get back to work too."

"Guess we should hurry," Juli said, ears twitching. They settled the tab, then headed outside.

Alissa let her hand rest on her sword as the yelling got a little nastier between the dwarf merchant and the elf leading the mob. From what little she could make out they were talking completely past each other. Juli and Sera were sticking close, keeping her between them and the brewing storm.

"Oh hey Alissa!"

She looked up to see Clara hurrying towards her from down the street. The archer hadn't yelled, but she'd used her size and some merchant crowd calling techniques to cut right through the argument.

Which meant eyes were now on their little group. Alissa hoped the woman had a plan, because there was no way Clara hadn't done that on purpose. For now she settled for letting her cloak open a little bit, and simply replying. "Clara. What's up?"

"Got a new job maybe." She gave a dismissive glance to the body on the pole. "And I figured you'd be wrapping up your little tete a tete. Ain't the kinda atmosphere that makes girls want to sit around and chat with passerbys." Alissa saw the idea ripple through the crowd and forced down a smile. Well that was a clever play.

Juli caught on immediately. She leaned forwards conspiratorially. "I know right. Flies and stuff, ugh. Got enough buzzing insects at work, thanks!"

"I get they're assholes," Sera added. "But why do we have to look at their ugly stupid faces on break? Well whatever."

Alissa gave an exaggerated shrug which got several of the weaker willed men in the crowd staring. "Hey it helps cut out the guys that like disease and rot smell. Anyway what's the job Clara?"

As they walked on past the mob, Alissa heard the two people start talking a little more reasonably about the bodies. She gave Clara a nod. "Nice play," she said quietly.

"Learned some tricks watching people talk down a lamia oil salesman's lynch mob when I was a kid," Clara replied. "Nice backup. Having a bunch of pretty girls say they didn't wanna hang around gets an idea through people's brains faster than facts about disease rates and stuff."

"Happy to help. I like my coffee free of corpse viewing," Sera said. She gave Clara a harder look. "That job isn't too dangerous though, right?"

"Didn't sound like it. But we haven't agreed to it either." The tall lady gestured towards the merchant areas. "Pacio Engraver's Guild has a special task they wanna hire us for."

Alissa raised an eyebrow. "Interesting." It seemed a little early for them to be getting requests directly. So that meant either the Guild was desperate, or their group had some unique skill. Both of which sounded good for her wallet. "The others already on their way?"

"Yep," Clara grinned. "Everyone wants to hear what kinda deal they're gonna offer. Even if we don't bite it's gonna be quite the story."